With security being an important area of concern globally, recently an emphasis has been placed on technologies that may help to detect threats, to identify parties involved in an incident, etc. For example, governmental facilities, educational facilities, overnight lodging facilities (e.g. hotels, resorts, etc.), commercial facilities, etc. may employ electronic surveillance for protecting public servants, employees, students, guests, merchandise (e.g., from shoplifters), etc. At least one technology that may enhance electronic surveillance is image processing for detecting and tracking faces. Face detection technologies may be able to identify faces within an image (e.g., a single frame of video). Detected faces may then be tracked from image to image to determine a path of movement through a facility. While processing images in this manner may be somewhat straightforward for detecting and tracking one face, existing face detection and tracking systems may become quickly overwhelmed when attempting to process video of a large crowd of people, wherein each face in a large number of faces must be identified and tracked from frame to frame.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.